Our Kia Picanto’s 1.0-litre engine has just begun to loosen up at just short of 7000 miles, and is now considerably less ‘thrummy’ than it was when new. It’s always going to be slightly offbeat because it’s only got three cylinders, but it’s reassuring to find it’s now spinning smoothly and fun to rev to the redline.

I’m still impressed by the car’s packaging. After a meal in town, we drove home with two adults in the front and two in the back. There wasn’t much room left, but everyone was comfortable. You can’t make that claim in some considerably larger cars.

Ed.Keohane@whatcar.com

Week ending February 10Mileage 6857Driven this week 435 miles

I did a lot of motorway miles the week before last and returned 41.1mpg – not particularly good compared with the official figure of 67.3mpg.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been doing far more miles around town and along dual carriageways, so I had hoped for better economy.

The Picanto’s three-cylinder engine requires some rather ragged acceleration to keep up with the rest of the traffic on the roads, however, so the fuel consumption was actually worse than it was on the cruising motorway runs.

How bad? Well, 36.9mpg bad, which is a crazy 30.4mpg less than the official figure.